Trump isn’t the first top-tier presidential candidate to skip a debate. Ronald Reagan did not attend a Republican debate ahead of the 1980 Iowa caucuses, which he lost to George H.W. Bush. Reagan went on to the win the nomination and the presidency.

On her Fox News program Tuesday night, Kelly said she will still co-moderate the debate. “The truth is he doesn’t get to control the media,” Kelly said. “I’ll be there. … The debate will go on with or without Trump.”

The network said in an e-mailed statement that “capitulating to politicians’ ultimatums about a debate moderator violates all journalistic standards, as do threats.” Fox said it had “warned” Lewandowski “not to level any more threats” against Kelly, as when he allegedly told the network that “Megyn had a ‘rough couple of days after that last debate’ and he ‘would hate to have her go through that again.’”
“‘We can’t give in to terrorizations toward any of our employees,” the network said.

Trump told reporters the campaign will “raise some money for the Wounded Warriors.” “We’ll raise money for the vets,” Trump said. “I was all set to do the debate. I came here to do the debate. When they sent out the wise-guy press releases a little while ago, done by some PR person, along with Roger Ailes, I said: ‘Bye, bye.’”

Trump’s campaign also released a statement saying that “Mr. Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one.”